a great
many scholars right now who are a long ways older than you are."

"All right! You can just put my name down, too," I replied, and the
following Monday evening Remey and I started to go to school together,
and this time there was no nonsense about it. That winter I studied
faithfully, and, though it was hard work, by the time spring came and we
returned to Chicago I had acquired at least a fair knowledge of the
rudiments of business and was able to keep my own books, figure my own
interest, and, in fact, run my own business.

During the greater part of another winter I ran a hand-ball court on
Michigan avenue in Chicago, which did not prove to be a. paying venture,
one reason, and the paramount one, being that it was too far away from
the business center of the town at that time, though now it would have
been in the very heart of the business district, while still another
reason was that there were not enough hand-ball players in the city to
keep the game running.

Some time during the latter part of the '80s the old Congress street
grounds were converted during the winter season into a skating rink and
toboggan slide, and of this I had the management during one whole
season, a season that was pecuniarily profitable to the lessees of the
grounds, as the weather during the greater part of the winter was
severe, the ice in fine condition and the toboggan slide in apple-pie
order.

Ice skating was that season more popular in Chicago than it had ever
been before, and the toboggan craze, which had been brought over here
from Canada, at once caught on to the public fancy. As a result the
Congress Street Rink was crowded both afternoon and evening, and,
strange to relate, the attendance was of the most fashionable sort, the
young men and maidens from all parts of the city assembling for the
purpose of going down the toboggan slide, which was attended with a
great deal more of excitement in those days than was the sport of
"shooting the chutes," its summer prototype, which later on became
popular. The grounds were handsomely lighted and, thronged as they were
in the evening with gaily-attired skaters of both sexes, and toboggan
parties arrayed in the picturesque rigs that were the fashion in
Montreal, Quebec and other Canadian cities, they made a pretty sight and
one that attracted crowds of spectators, some of the skaters being of
the kind that would have been styled champions in the days when Frank
Swift, Callie